


the water was dark (and it went down forever)

by ashkazora



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Dark, Gen, Kinda?, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron)-centric, Lance is a BAMF, Langst, Lowkey hurt/comfort, Possession, Sentient Voltron Lions, Shiro is a space mum, Temporary Character Death, and by lions I mean Blue because this is Lance-centric, dark!blue, dark!lions, excessive use of the word 'cold', i guess?, the lions aren't evil they're just, the lions want what's best for their paladins, who would've thought, yeah it's kinda whumpy but not intensely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2020-11-08 22:14:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20842862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashkazora/pseuds/ashkazora
Summary: Looking back on it, Lance was surprised he didn’t see it earlier.He was too caught up in a war he never signed up for.Five sentient lions, each with a unique set of weaknesses and strengths or personalities and behaviours. How they acted alone, controlled themselves, was beyond anyone’s comprehension.He was about to find out how powerful the Lions truly were.-In which the Blue Lion wants what's best for her paladin.





	1. initium

**Author's Note:**

> Hewwo! This is basically my first pic for this fandom, and one that's pretty abrupt. This was supposed to be a short 2-3k drabble that serving as a warmup for my planned multi-chapter fic but 8k in I decided that I couldn't finish on such a short notice. Oops.
> 
> This is my first time ever posting on ao3 (previously I've only ever posted on Wattpad) and honestly it's a really interesting layout. Please tell me if I've formatted anything incorrectly/have any spelling errors!
> 
> I really only joined this fandom after s8 aired and it took quite a while for me to get the courage to actually write something. I hope you enjoy this spur-in-the-moment fever dream. 
> 
> This takes place either before the lion swap, or an au where everyone went back to their original lions. But let's just say somewhere in s1/s2. 
> 
> Comments/feedback is really appreciated :)

Looking back on it, they were surprised they didn’t see it earlier.

Though they were too caught up in a war they never signed up for to notice.

Five sentient lions, each with a unique set of weaknesses and strengths, or personalities and behaviours. How they acted alone, controlled themselves, was beyond anyone’s comprehension. All the paladins knew was that they were bonded to a weapon - a being capable of freeing the universe from the clutches of a herculean race.

They accepted their fates as handlers of them too readily.

Every mission, every adventure, the raw, unfitted power seeped through the pilots' veins. Channelled through claws of steel and eyes of gold, the machines poured their energy into the humans they loved the most. It was addictive, capitative. The highs were high and the lows were low. Sometimes the paladins craved another battle just to get another hit of the intoxicating force.

Over quintets of training, the paladins grew more aware of their bonds, of the ever-present force at the back of their minds. Some found it comforting, while others merely blocked it out as a means of distraction.

Lance was the first one to realise the Lion’s danger.

His teammates were all brilliant in their own, special way. The Black Paladin, a hero and a leader; forced into a world he was not ready for and emerged a champion of his own right. Unchallenged, the best fighter the Galra Empire had lain its eyes on. Then his right-hand man, the Red Paladin, fiery and impulsive; a stellar pilot and fearsome swordsman. To bear the brunt of his anger was almost a death wish.

Another primary colour, the Yellow Paladin, the biggest sweetheart of the entire universe (in Lance’s completely informed and scientific opinion); a defensive wall and strength that matched the toughest species in space. His capabilities of engineering were complimentary to the Green Paladin, intellectual and sharp-witted; her hunger for knowledge unquenched by the wonders of exotic technology.

Everyone had their place, it seemed. Lance, for a very long time, struggled to find his own little niche. Where did he fit in, if he didn’t have any standout talent? Long nights and much-needed sleep was lost as he mulled over this question for months. Who was he, if he was not needed? A seventh wheel of sorts, his mind supplemented once late at the Castle’s artificial night.

As vargas flew by, the Cuban boy slowly but surely fit within the large puzzle of Voltron. He didn’t need other species to claim it, his friends already reassured that he was a brilliant shot - a sharpshooter in his own right. Flexible and agile, Lance could manoeuvre gracefully and with deadly precision within the enemy ranks using his rifle in close combat. No shot was wasted; every single time he pulled the trigger a bolt of plasma hit its target. A great pilot, even in the shadows of the Black and Red paladin. Or was he the diplomat, accompanying Allura or Shiro to never-ending discussions of foreign affairs that he navigated and manipulated with a subtle finesse that never once lacked tact?

The Blue Paladin could be called all of those things and he truly did relish in the gushing of other’s praises to him. But outside of the scrutinous alliance eye, Lance possessed the strongest bonds to the Lions.

It was not luck nor change that he was the one to find Blue. Written in the stars, all considered by destiny, Lance captured the attention of the most loyal and loving Lion of Voltron. Their fellowship was practically instantaneous from the moment he’d set foot in the dusty Arizona cave. Or perhaps it was earlier before the idea of a fighter pilot for a profession was even entertained in his mind. Did free will guide him, or was it all - as the Altean princess proclaimed quite often - fate?

After he’d activated his Lion (the proprietorial claim made him feel warm), Lance was bombarded with the emotions and visions sent from the sentient creature. Not long after, she adopted his tongue - both English and Spanish. At first, he thought he was going quite literally space crazy but after a short talk and a good pat on the head from Coran, the Blue Paladin that no, he was not going mad.

Quite the opposite, Coran stated, for he’d never seen such a strong bond forged between a Paladin and their Lion in such a short time before. With a lowered voice and a hand placed on Lance’s shoulder, the advisor praised him in a genuine tone.

That night as Lance lay in his bunker, his thoughts were free from their doubts. He’d finally found something that he was good - no, the best - at.

Oh, how Lance wished things went differently.

Space was cold. Only a fraction of a degree below absolute zero, Lance remembered from Garrison classes. Even more so, space was confining. The Castle of Lions was built for hundreds of occupants, for teams of engineers and pilots and generals to command an operational spaceship. Too many rooms were closed off once the Alteans realised that only seven people would call the Castle their home. With the winding corridors and emotionless metalloid aesthetic, it was easy to feel alone. Claustrophobic, but solitary.

On his worst days, when waves of homesickness would drown him in its weight, Lance found himself unable to talk to his teammates. He didn’t want to distract Hunk (his friend would worry and fuss and _god_ he already subjected Hunk to too much of his worries) or sidetrack Pidge (she would probably laugh at him anyway if she wasn’t too busy being engrossed in her latest project). God forbid he’d talk with Keith (who brushed anyone off the moment something got too ‘emotional’) or bother Shiro (his fears paled in comparison compared to what the Black Paladin went through. Besides, he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of his hero). Allura wouldn’t understand, either. Usually, he could count on Coran to confide in yet for some reason, Lance found himself dithering at the prospect of such talk.

So Lance retreated to the hangars, greeting his Lion like an equal. Surprisingly, soothing words the Blue Lion would mentally project evaporated the crushing loneliness of space’s cruel isolation. She became his comfort and outlet, an intimate friend for lack of a better word. He felt safe in her helm, sharing his most buried secrets. How he felt inadequate compared to his teammates. How he yearned to see the smiles of his family. How he feared to lose his mother tongue from disuse. How he woke up in pain from the scar that covered his back.

How he didn’t mind putting himself in harm's way if it saved another. How valuable his life truly was compared to everyone else. Lance poured his soul out to her.

And in return, Blue spilt her soul back into him.

꩜ — ꩜

Mission after mission fights gradually became harder and the stakes grew higher. The battle for the universe was quickly reaching a boiling point. Less and less sleep was granted to the Paladins as more and more planets demanded their attention. Each day brought a new challenge, one that pushed team Voltron to their limits. Each Paladin had spent more time stuck within cryopod in the past month than the collective in the first half-year. Tensions were high. The nervous energy present in the Castle was palpable.

Everyone dealt with stress differently. Keith would become almost non-existent in social activities, opting to only show his face at mealtimes. Like the jackass he was, He’d take up the entire training deck for most of the day.

Hunk and Pidge would retreat into whatever new project they were working on, while Shiro and Allura stayed up long past their designated night cycles to plan and scheme and make sure that they weren’t killed.

At first, Lance became almost obsessive with his self-care routine. The Galra ruined so many things for him, why should they ruin his perfect skin as well? Too bad the compounding night terrors that plagued his dreams caused deep bags to appear on his face - ones that not even countless alien facemasks could rid. Who cared about skincare anymore? Foundation existed for a reason. Thank god his sisters taught him how to put on makeup; his teammates didn’t even realise how drained Lance felt.

Like a moth to a flame, Lance retreated to the only soul he could confide in absolute.

Blue.

And so he whispered his feelings, words tumbling out of his mouth like a waterfall. He refused to let his friends suffer from any more of his mistakes. Too many times had his poor judgement and lacklustre close-ranged combat cost the team in different ways. Too many near-death experiences that he was held accountable.

Blue listened and offered comfort. She got angry on Lance’s behalf and defended actions that Allura berated him for. She refused to enable his self-doubt, instead of praising her paladin and sending calming emotions into his mind. After a while, Lance didn’t even need to verbalise his insecurities for Blue somehow knew what he felt, what his emotions were. She was an ever-present energy at the back of his mind, a voice inside his head that he slowly began to depend on. To talk with her was a guaranteed distraction from hardships at hand. Her frigid presence reminded him of home - of the cold Cuban waters, the popsicles he’d have on the beach, the cool summer breeze at night.

She listened when he complained about Pidge and Hunk’s jokes which he was usually the punchline of or Keith’s insulting jabs. She listened when he bemoaned about embarrassing himself in front of his hero, Shiro, for the third time that week, or when Allura got pissed at him from losing concentration in a meeting. She listened when he was homesick or wistful, or even his hunger for exploration and adventure without the threat of a looming war.

Blue always listened to Lance. Maybe it was time he listened to her.

꩜ — ꩜

Lance was running.

Hollow echos of footsteps on metal were lost to the thunderous roars of gunfire. A sulphurous haze hung heavy within the corridors, a preview of the battle that raged on.

His breath was ragged and uneven; his pupils dilated in panic. Bayard in its standard blaster form, the Blue Paladin looked over his shoulder and pulled the trigger rapidly. His usual poised form was frantic and desperate. Sentries and even the occasional Galra soldier were hit yet every time one went down, another took its place just as fast.

What was supposed to be a simple reconnaissance mission turned into an all-too-familiar carnage. After freeing Ignika (a quaint jungle planet with beautiful bird-like inhabitants), Pidge had gathered intel of a major Galran base. According to the countless lines of code that Lance wished he could understand, the Green Paladin most encrypted Galran communications ran through this base to be decrypted and passed along. It all sounded perfect. A sparsely populated, barely protected fortress relying on the gravitational waves of a nearby pulsar to hide it. A perfect trap.

Thanks to Pidge’s recent upgrades on the mech, all five Lions managed to sneak onto the base completely cloaked from any visible eye. They parked in separate hangars yet convened where Black and her paladin were located. After that Shiro took Hunk to the barracks where the two brawlers would create some sort of diversion while Pidge, Keith and Lance snuck into the mainframe. Decrypting the communications would take a considerable amount of time so Pidge opted to merely download the entire mainframe and decrypt it on the Castle.

Of course, like _every single mission,_ things went wrong practically instantly. Surprise surprise, the whole base was a ruse. Swarms of sentries and Galra were alerted to their location and each paladin soon found themselves overwhelmed.

“There’s too many of them. I can’t hold them back!” Keith shouted over the comms. The Blue and Red Paladins fought side-by-side at the entrance of the mainframe, slicing and shooting anyone who wasn’t wearing a primary colour.

“Paladins, you need to retreat _now._ The Castle scanners have picked up a fleet of battleships heading our way. We have less than a varga before they arrive!” Allura yelled urgently.

So Lance ran, his slender limbs easily outpacing Pidge and Keith’s strides. Pidge was separated first; the hangar where Green had been parked was closest out of the three. Keith’s stop was next, and Lance was left on his own being trailed by a whole battalion of Galra. After what felt to be hours (yet was probably only ten minutes), he had arrived at his own hangar, muscles aching and sore. Lance scanned the room quickly and to his delight, he couldn’t see anyone else hiding in the shadows of his Lion. With a determined scowl, he sprinted across the exposed clearing, only around a couple hundred meters from his vessel.

“Paladins! What is your status?” Allura once more returned to the comms.

“Black is out and is on route to the Castle. ETA of two doboshes.” Shiro said, as calm and steady as always “Red and Green are with me.”

“Hunk? Lance? What about you?”

Lance cringed as Allura’s shrill voice called out to him. He was about to reply, before Hunk’s comms crackled to life. “Yellow has just left the pulsar’s orbit! We should be there in a couple of minutes, I think.”

“And Lance? What about you?” Shiro interjected, his stern tone laced with concern. The Blue Paladin could feel his cheeks heat up in a mixture of annoyance and embarrassment.

“I-I’m almost at Blue! Just give me a minute or two and we’ll be out.”

Shiro sighed, but it was Keith who responded, “Just hurry up, okay? We need to get out of here before the Galra-“

Lance heard the shot before he felt it. A deafening blast shot throughout the hanger. Purple filled his vision before his legs gave out from underneath him. Falling on his back, Lance felt like he was floating. An endless cacophony of white noise drowned out his own ear-piercing screams. Were his comms still on? Could his teammates hear him? Probably not, he hoped. Lance slowly lifted his hand and placed it on his chest, just under the section where the armour met the bodysuit. A slow keen escaped his lips as his fingers came into contact with the gaping hole in his abdomen - the only point of vulnerability his chest plate didn't hide. Judging by the blood that slid off his chest and pooled from underneath him, it wouldn’t even matter if his friends came in time. The shot was clean, in through his ribcage and out the other side.

Lance let out a soft, wet laugh despite the blinding pain that pushed on his chest. This was it. He’d always hoped to go out in a blaze of glory, but this would have to make-do. He tried to blink out the growing darkness at the edge of his vision, but that made him even dizzier. His mind was heavy and blank.

Would Allura take over as the Blue Paladin, Lance thought to himself, or would they find someone else to take his place? He hoped that his team got out safely and without serious injury. He didn’t want to imagine their reactions to his fallen body. _‘Lance McClain finally fucked up so hard that he died’_ was probably what they would be thinking. About time, if Lance was perfectly honest with himself. Pure luck and a little bit of bluffing could only get him so far out of deadly situations.Ha, he was pathetic. Even in his last moments, he still managed to pull of a self-deprecating joke. _Oh_, _dios_, how would Hunk and the rest of his friends tell his family? Lance prayed that they would understand why he abandoned them to reach the stars, and why he was never coming back. Tears fell down his mocha cheeks, quickly mixing with the crimson blood that now bloomed around him.

Biting back the bile that rose in his throat, the boy closed his eyes. The pain radiating from his wound now was simply a background numbness. Yes, that’s how he felt. Numb. No injury. No agonising pain. Just a dull throb. Peaceful.

Lance inhaled.

The breath never left his lungs.

-

When he was younger, Lance would sometimes think about _‘the other side.’_ Would he be greeted by his family when the day finally came? Or did the mind simply cease to exist; a conscious snuffed out. Recently, the Cuban supposed at least some part of him would return to the Lions. Perhaps his quintessence would fuel Blue and her new Paladin to seek revenge from whoever managed to finally kill Voltron’s ‘Loverboy.’

What Lance _didn’t_ expect was the absolute cold sensation compressed his body. Icy tendrils gripped at his head, jolting his brain into overdrive. Frostbite pickled at his extremities as a soft voice reverberated in his mind.

**Wake up.**

_I can’t._

**Move.**

_I can’t._

A pause, then,

**I cannot lose you as well**.

Lance gasped. The once diminished pain compounded, the intense stabs shocking his nerves awake. No no no no no he was dead, how could he feel like this? Thousands of frigid thorns stabbed at his skin as if he’d been thrown into arctic water. Lance tried to do something, anything, but his limbs refused to respond to him. Something forced him to open his eyes. In the reflection of the cracked visor, a brilliant opaqueness shone.

His eyes glowed blue.

Ice flowed through his veins, re-energising his broken body. No longer was blood gushing from Lance’s wound now that it had frozen over, shielding his abdomen with a layer of frost. Rime and fog billowed from his mouth, creating a small cloud of moisture as he breathed once more.

He was… alive?

With the strength only a mighty beast could posses, Lance rose to his feet and let out a guttural **roar**. The Cuban’s limbs acted on their own accord, leaping into action once more Bayard in hand and with terrifying precision, shooting down each and every Galra that dared to challenge the Blue Paladin. Lance growled hungrily, the rush of pulling the trigger and watching his enemies fall unable to satisfy a foreign desire for victory.

Lance was merely a spectator in his culling. Whatever primal urge to see life seep out of the Galra’s eyes overcame whatever injury he’d previously been inflicted in. He moved with grace and elegance through the enemy ranks, using whatever strength and elasticity he never knew he had to obliterate anything in his path. Lance was angry, no, _furious_. How dare the Galra hurt him?! They would pay for their crimes against the universe, against _her_ Paladin-

No… Those weren’t his thoughts. The rush, the adrenaline. This wasn’t him. The ferocity, the anger? It felt so foreign, so cold…

Shaking his head, a thread snapped in Lance’s mind - the trance he’d fallen into faded away. Suddenly, the horror of his surroundings registered in his brain. Every single fallen soldier was left bloodied and bleeding, their unbeating hearts expelling the lasts drops of amethyst-purple blood from their orifices. Dark spray plagued the walls and floors and every single surface it could attach to.

“Lance!”

His whole team - sans Allura and Coran - stood at the entrance of the hangar. They were greeted by the sight of Lance hunched over, breathing irregular and hoarse. His knuckles had turned white from how hard he gripped his rifle. Surrounding him was a ship’s worth of Galra and sentries, strewn around like they were nothing more than playthings to be discarded; their limbs and necks if not burned from the plasma bent at unnatural angles. And the blood, oh god the blood.

It was _everywhere_.

Lance’s eyes, previously focused and hardened, were now glazed. The last of the adrenaline left his body, leaving the Blue Paladin shaking from head to toe yet finally able to control his limbs. He felt like he’d come off a high, too drunk in his own power to stay conscious. He dropped his bayard, unable to find the strength to hold it any longer. 

To Team Voltron’s horror, traces of crimson liquid intermingled the Galran serum. There was no way Lance could’ve been standing - the pools of his blood were littered everywhere. Lance’s armour, cracked and broken, was sprayed with both species’ blood. No presence remained of the ice in his chest wound yet it no longer bled as bad. Pungent metallic doors sent Hunk retching in the corridor, unable to stomach the sight of… whatever bloodbath he’d just entered.

If the team rushed forward to him, Lance couldn’t tell. Inky-black splotches clouded the edges of his vision as a wave of nausea threatened to topple him over. Nothing and everything ran through his mind - the pure overstimulation and simultaneous helplessness twisted whatever thoughts he could process. Was he numb, or in crippling agony? A stream of blood tricked out from his nose and with one final shake, Lance’s knees finally collapsed.

It was over. The battle, the mission. Before he could succumb to the ever-growing darkness, a sharp, familiar coldness rung through his head.

**You are mine**.

꩜ — ꩜

Eyes heavy, a familiar electrical buzz woke Lance up. Muffled whispers reverberated against the opaque glass that surrounded him. He tried to move his limbs, but some sort of metal constricted any movement.

_Where am I?_

The enclosure let out a long hiss and the glass fell. Lance let out a surprised yelp as his body fell forward from the pod to the grey metal floors. At the last second, a pair of hands caught him and possibly saved him from busting his nose on the pavement.

Legs shaking, the Cuban tried to stand up but couldn’t muster the strength. His head lolled forward - too heavy for his weak body to support properly. If his _mama_ was here right now then _oh dios_ she’d be so pissed at his posture.

“Hey, you, you’re finally awake!” The person said. If he had the energy, Lance would’ve probably laughed at the unintentional reference.

“Wha’happ’n?” Lance managed to choke out. His whole head felt like cotton and he had only a vague recollection of whatever went down that managed to land him _again_ in a cryopod. Weakly raising his chin, Lance’s eyes travelled over the figure’s features. Everything was blurry.

He blinked once, twice. On the third blink, the fogginess cleared from his eyes. The worried smile of Hunk greeted him.

“You were out for a while, buddy. Do you want me to take you to your room?” Lance’s eyes narrowed slightly. Hunk avoided his question. Hunk, the personification of an open book, someone unable to keep secrets from anyone, was avoiding his question. He tried to think back to before he was knocked out but no memories graced him with their presence.

“Wh’re’s ev’ryone?” _Dios_ this was pathetic. Why couldn’t he speak properly? His whole body seemed to react slowly as if his synapses weren’t firing at the right speed. Waking up from a cryopod always made Lance feel… raw. Like his insides had been heated, frozen, then reheated again.

Hunk’s breath hitched slightly and if it wasn’t for the otherwise silence of the room, Lance wouldn’t have noticed the tell.

“It’s pretty late castle-time, so everyone’s pretty much asleep. In the morning we’re having a post-mission debrief.”

Lance groaned. He hated those meetings. They always took four hours too long and made him want to bash his head against the wall. Or fall asleep. Whichever gave him the sweet release of not having to listen to Allura drone on about what they did wrong. There were few things Lance was good at in life, sitting still was not one of them.

Under all that annoyance, Lance felt a pang of gratefulness at his friend. No one else stayed up late for Lance’s awakening. Out of all the humans, aliens, or somewhere in-between living in the castle, it was Hunk who decided to waste sleep just for him.

Then another, colder emotion shoved its way into his mind. No one else came. Lance quickly shoved that thought down into the depths of his conscious because of course no one would come, it was quiznacking late at night. War is war and sleep is hard to come by when every other day you’re being attacked by another quintessence-fuelled monstrosity. Whatever Hunk was avoiding, he must have had a good reason. At least he’d know at tomorrow’s briefing.

“‘re yuh okay?” Lance slurred again. Fuck, this was really getting annoying. Why couldn’t his mouth just respond? Every movement, every action felt too sluggish, too slow. It was as if his whole body had seemingly rebooted itself, and he couldn’t even remember why.

“I’m fine, Lance, don’t worry about me.” Hunk’s voice was soft and oddly similar to his parents whenever he’d get sick. “Here, you need to get some rest.” And with one big swoop of his arms, the Yellow Paladin bundled Lance’s lanky body in his arms. Lance let out a surprised yelp but couldn’t help but grin slightly as he was carried out of the room. The Blue Paladin was no small person - with legs for days and a hight almost as large as his personality - yet Hunk’s everlasting strength managed to support him.

Being bridal-carried around the Castle of Lions was almost… fun? Scratch that, it was hilariously enjoyable. Lance’s body, still suffering from post-cryo fatigue, were almost completely limp in Hunk’s arms, his head and arms hanging lamely from his body.

“Getting ‘ure daily weights training?” Lance weakly grinned up at his friend.

“Hardly. You weigh less than Pidge.”

Lance gasped in mock surprise and attempted to put his hands over his heart. Yet as his limbs barely lifted, he resigned to be the ragdoll the universe wanted him to be. “Babe! How dare ‘ou.”

Hunk snorted at his friend’s dramatic antics. “Stop skipping breakfast and maybe you’ll be able to finally get some muscle.” Letting out an indignant huff, Lance couldn’t help but smile at the Yellow Paladin. He missed their teasing and late-night gossip sessions at the Garrison (somehow Lance always knew the current gossip at the school, most of the time before anyone else. Who could blame him, though? He was a theatre kid and thrived off teenage drama), before they were all hauled into space on an ancient mecha Lion. The bad space-war anime his life had devolved into was almost isolated from his friends. Truthfully, the Cuban was surprised that Hunk even noticed he’d been skipping out on meals lately. It wasn’t because of anything serious, really, just that some days he’d struggle to get out of bed. Not the lazy, oh-I-don’t-want-to-go-to-school type thing, but more of the early morning existential dread variant.

Lance had gotten everything he always dreamed of. An adventure with friends, the chance to fly across galaxies, an opportunity to meet his hero, Takashi Shirogane. Hell, he’d even saved a weird space princess in his time as a Paladin of Voltron. He really shouldn’t complain about his situations, even if he was unwillingly conscripted into a millennium-old war or forcefully separated from his family and unable to tell them that he was alive. Such were the trade-offs of reaching the stars. 

If he was ever thrown into another corrupted wormhole and sent back in time, Lance wouldn’t do things differently. Maybe he’d say a proper goodbye to his parents and family, or at least leave them a note explaining everything. Though, as much as he hated to admit it, nothing could stop him from leaving. Homesickness _sucked,_ but in the end, being a hero was everything he ever asked for, right?

Finally, after what seemed to be hours (read: minutes) of walking, Hunk finally reached Lance’s room.

“Hey, dude? What’s your password? My biometrics aren’t loaded on your room’s scanner.”

Fuck. Lance _really_ didn’t want to say his password. Less because he liked his privacy and more because it was sort of embarrassing. Thank the mighty, sentient Lion Gods he’d changed it a while ago from his original code which was _totally_ not inappropriate.

“1-26-21-18-1.”

Hunk pressed the combination into the keypad, and the door swung open.

“Huh, nice cypher. I’m sure Blue loves the nickname.”

Lance blushed. “Shut up. It was cute at the time.”

Hauling his friend’s limp body across the room, Hunk gently placed Lance on his bed and covered him with the thin, castle-issue blanket.

“Get some sleep, okay? It’s really late. The others will see you in the morning.” He nodded at Hunk’s words, only half-listening. His eyelids were already drooping in exhausting.

“G’nite.” He murmured. The Yellow Paladin waved his hand in response and walked out the door. Lance was left in his unlit room, half-asleep, thoroughly confused. Lanced turned his head to face his wall, and frowned at the sight of his dimly-lit alarm clock. It made no sense that the others weren’t awake, maybe Hunk had forgotten to tell him something?

Because according to the Standard Castle Time clock, it was only midday.

꩜ — ꩜

Slowly rousing from his restless slumber, Lance found himself sprawled on the cold, metal floor, his blankets and pillows left abandoned on the bed. Groaning in a mixture of tiredness and annoyance that he was awake, Lance peeled himself from the ground and stood up shakily. Faint snippets of his dreams came back to him. Scenes of Varadero beach and the Arizonian desert punctuated by flashes of purple, blue, and gold.

Taking a few quavery steps, he made his way over to the bathroom, and let out another annoyed groan. Saying that he looked like shit was a complete understatement. Dark, heavy bags lay underneath his eyes and coupled by the pale and waxy pallor his skin decided to show, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Surveying the damages his poor body had been through, Lance combed his fingers through his untidy hair, wincing at the greasiness of it. Of course the cryopod managed to completely obliterate his self-care. It was going to take a lot of shampoo, conditioner, and specially-made food goo face masks to bring his carefully tended complexion back to the way it was.

Having only a vague recollection of Hunk bridal-carrying him to his room, Lance wasn’t surprised that he still wore the skintight cryosuit. No wonder he had felt so hot last night. But what surprised Lance (mostly because he completely brushed over it before) were the faint, brightened lines that marred his face. On the side of his mouth, a small, barely-there yet somewhat noticeable line cut into his upper lip and flesh, while longer, thicker scar trailed over his eyebrow and thinned at his cheekbone, its marks a slightly lighter shade than his caramel skin.

_Huh. Interesting_. Lance was strangely apathetic to the scars. They made him look almost… rugged? Like some sort of antagonist in a children’s novel. The blemish over his lip amused him - what was he going to do now, steal a lightning bolt? Lance snorted at his own joke and made an aborted motion to unzip the suit.

What if, just like his face, the cryopod couldn’t fully heal any other injuries. Lance knew for a fact that he’d been hit somewhere on his body. Did he really want to see any more scars?

The Blue Paladin turned away from the mirror. He _knew_ scars weren’t a bad thing yet that didn’t stop shame from gnawing at his belly. Or maybe it was hunger.

His stomach rumbled. It was definitely hunger.

Without staring at the mirror or at himself, Lance began to strip out of the suit and into his usual hoodie-and-jeans attire. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his alarm clock on the bedside table.

It was almost 12.

_Fuck_! He was going to be late for the meeting. Rushing to put on his shoes, Lance left his room with only one sock and undone laces. He sprinted as fast as his tired legs would take him, finely cutting corners around the castle to try and minimise his time. It didn’t take long to get to the meeting room (which was technically where they all ate breakfast) yet Lance found himself waiting next to the entrance. He could hear faint snippets on a conversation through the open door. The singular brain cell he possessed at that moment told him to wait outside, to listen.

_“-essence, luckily he’s stable-“_

_“-not sure how he manag-“_

_“-was completely dangerous-“_

_“-doesn’t even remember-“_

Lance frowned at the muffled voices. Surely the team wouldn’t start a meeting without him, right? With a tentative shuffle, the Blue Paladin walked through the door.

“What’s up, babes?” He grinned, putting on a voice that was too jovial and energetic for his lethargic state. With every step, his strides became more confident and with more swagger, like he didn’t just sleep for the equivalent of a light coma. He stopped at the head of the table, his smile falling as he surveyed the room.

Everyone was in their casual clothes (except for Allura, maybe. Did she even have casual clothes, or did she only ever wear those formal dresses?) and were sitting around the breakfast table. Casual was certainly a way to describe how everyone was situated. No food-goo bowls were in sight and instead, everyone seemed to gravitate around the small form of Pidge and her opened laptop, yet they made an awful effort to try and _seem_ like they weren’t. Shiro and Allura had stood up while Hunk was guiltily looking in every direction but Pidge, while the female paladin hastily closed her monitor. Keith - wonderful, unsubtle Keith - stared at the ground and wore his signature scowl. _Something is definitely up_, Lance concluded.

“You look like shit.” Keith quipped flatly, his words devoid of any real malice.

“Thanks for that, Mullet. Do you always like to pick on the weak?” He snarked back.

Pidge snorted at their exchange. “Oof, self-burn. Those are rare.” Her eyes narrowed as if to challenge anyone who dared to pick up on her reference. By the lack of response that followed, no one had the guts to do so.

Lance gave a gesture that his mother would almost certainly slap him for and made his way next to Pidge, promptly sitting down on the table and ignoring Shiro’s disapproving stare. For extra effect, Lance hung his legs off the chair and leaned it back. Keith’s scowl intensified. Shiro opened his mouth to say something but Lance quickly cut him off.

“I can’t believe you’d start the meeting without me. I’m hurt.” The Blue Paladin drawled, his hands on his chest as if their actions had mortally wounded his heart. “How come none of you woke me up? My alarm didn’t go off.” _That’s right, act natural_. Act like the new scars on his face didn’t exist, act like the bags underneath his eyes weren’t there. Act like he didn’t want to collapse from exhaustion. As an expressive former theatre kid, Lance could do that, could act like everything was okay.

Shiro gave a tight-lipped, almost sympathetic smile. “We wanted you to sleep in. It takes a while to recover from the cryopods.” Lance snorted at that statement. _No shit Sherlock_, of course it took time to get over post-cryopod moods. He knew all about cryopods, seeing as he was in them the most. “How are you feeling?” The Black Paladin asked.

“Peachy-keen, like I could take on a whole Galra fleet.”

Lance watched as Shiro’s eyes briefly flicked over to Pidge. _Huh_, that was odd. Did he say something wrong? The movement was so quick that Lance thought he might have imagined it. Before he could mull over it any longer, Shiro replied in his usual leader-y voice.

“That’s great, Lance. I’m glad you’re feeling better. We’ll fill you in about everything now if you’d like?”

Lance nodded enthusiastically and quickly sat back down on the chair. His recent stint made him feel so out of the loop, especially since he still couldn’t quite remember. “What… happened? How long was I out for?”

To his left, Hunk piped up. “A couple of quint- days.”

“Two and a half, to be exact.” Pidge added.

Lance raised his eyebrow, unsure on how to process this information. Usually, cryopods could fix most injuries in less than a day. For him to be stuck for over two? He must have been injured. Badly.

“Well yeah, but what _actually happened_? I can barely remember any-“ Something, a faint inkling of a memory returned to him. Without thinking, he grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled it down, exposed a large portion of his bare chest. There in the centre of his ribcage marring his unblemished skin, a circular formation of raised, knotted skin scarred his chest. He wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a matching scar was on his back. Lance traced the outline of the cicatrix, unable to stop his hand from shaking or lip from trembling.

“I… I-“ His breath hitched in his throat. Lance _tried_ to remember what the fuck gave him the scar, yet he couldn’t focus on anything. It was as if something was blocking him from remembering. The only thing he could place was the pain the blossomed out of his chest and flowed through his veins and stabbed at his skin like thousands of tiny icicles. “I don’t… remember…”

Lance jumped slightly as a warm hand was placed on his shoulder. “Hey buddy, it’s okay. You’re safe now.” Shiro’s voice was soft, easily calming down the younger boy. Slowly but surely, the tremors that shook his arms dissipated. Lance mutely shook his head. He knew he was safe. Right? The Castle was warm and heated and suddenly too hot.

“No, it’s not- I know- It’s not that. I just…” What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he say anything? Taking a deep breath, Lance opened his mouth in an attempt to form a sentence with some sort of tangible coherency yet stopped as Shiro kneeled, becoming face-to-face with the Cuban. 

“It’s alright, everything is fine. Could you tell us what you did remember?” A blush spread across Lance’s face as his leader spoke to him with the exact same tone he’d use on his younger siblings. The boy racked his brain, trying to dig up anything of the previous mission. Tapping his fingers on the table in a rhythmic motion, he began to slightly recall some events.

“The, uh… I remember the mission, I guess? We were supposed to go onto the Galra base and get some information, I think. Heliohs quadrant, Zora’thci galaxy. In between the Amiya and Dulith systems. Three degrees north of the galaxy’s black hole, thirty-nine degrees east.” The whole team wore surprised expressions as he began to ramble. At this point, Lance was speaking without any discernible filter, as he tried to say everything he remembered. He paused for a second, unsure if he should continue. Shiro’s inviting nod prompted him to do so.

“We boarded the ship. Pidge, Keith and I downloaded the information. Then… then…” Lance ran his fingers through his hair (which after almost three days in the cryopod, _really_ needed a wash), trying to recall the next part of his memories. “Oh! Coran called us, right? It was a trap. I remember that.”

Shiro smiled, his (flesh) hand still placed on Lance’s shoulder. “Anything else?”

“Uh, we had to rush off? I think?” Uncertainty laced his voice. “Everything gets fuzzy after that. The Galra… were chasing us? We split up, right?”

Seemingly out of nowhere, Keith hummed in approval. Lance tried to make eye contact with the half-Galra then with his other teammates as the boy avoided his gaze. Wow, they really weren’t throwing him any bones here, were they? “We, uh… I was last out? Yeah, I was last out. I got to the hanger and Blue was there. I ran to her - was almost there. She was so close, and then-“ A bright, white flash enveloped his vision, the phantom scent of burning flesh flooding his senses.

“I died.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement. For a brief, fleeting moment, Lance could almost remember the brilliant blackness that invited him into an endless, painless slumber. And by the unsettled - uncomfortable, horrified - looks the team were giving him, Lance reckoned that he wasn’t too incorrect in the statement.

“How am I, y’know,“ Lance waved his hands, gesturing to his body “still alive? Don’t get me wrong, being dead _totally_ sucks and I may be no Slav but I’m like, at least 3.14% sure that I died.” Keith let out a mirthless chuckle that was almost instantly quelled by a sharp glare from Shiro, while Hunk and Pidge exchanged unsaid words. Their dark expressions made Lance queasy. Everything was so goddamn confusing. Couldn’t one mission go by without some sort of crazy shenanigans going on? Lance could only hope.

“That’s what we wanted to ask you. By all accounts, you should not be sitting here today.” From the back of the room, Coran spoke up.

Oh. _Oooooh._ The realisation hit Lance like a ton of bricks. The team didn’t know what happened either. That was… Good? Bad? He didn’t know. Even though he was getting answers from his team and filling in the blanks of his memory, something still nagged at the back of Lance’s mind. His sea-blue eyes darted to Pidge’s computer.

The cameras. All Galran headquarters had surveillance systems. It was like, the first thing Pidge hacked into when they infiltrated a ship or planet-grounded base. You’d think that after countless successful breaches the Empire would put more security on their surveillance systems.

“Weren’t there some sort of recording in the hangars?” He asked the Green Paladin. “I can’t read Galran that well but didn’t mainframe did have some serious space dictated to video logs?” Pidge looked like she’d been caught with her hand inside a cookie jar. The guilty expression plastered on her face coupled with the _'oh shit'_ glare Hunk was giving her proved Lance’s hypothesis correct. Did they not think he’d notice?

Shiro cut in before his mind could jump into any more conclusions. “Before we left, Katie managed to recover bits and pieces of the full surveillance logs, though most are semi-corrupted or have been appeared to be erased by some of the last Galran onboard.” Pidge glowered at Shiro but didn’t correct him. The whole team were acting weirdly evasive on the subject.

“Show me,” Lance said.

Pidge frowned. “Show you what?”

“The footage. Whatever you managed to download. Show me.” When no one else replied Lance added, “Everyone in this room obviously saw whatever went down but me. I have a right to know.”

Next to him, Shiro stood up and sighed, discomfort bleeding into his posture. “You’re right. As a Paladin of Voltron, you should know.” Lance stared at his leader with growing anticipation as he reached over Pidge’s body to open the laptop. The screen blinked on and displayed nothing but a stagnant, blurry recording of a purple-lit hangar. In the far right of the screen, Lance could just make out the blue-accented paws of his Lion.

Everyone in the room formed a small huddle around the screen though Lance doubted it was their first time watching it.

Pidge pressed play and for a few seconds nothing happened. Then, faint thumping sounds emitted from the speakers, growing louder and louder until the hangar door opened and a small figure landed with Altean-style armour sprinted in. Lance grew tenser with every step the figure (of him, he registered) took.

Transfixed on the screen, Lance watched the recordings in growing horror. He had to stop himself from calling out as a grainy image of him was running across the hangar, unaware of his surroundings. A passing blur of purple hidden behind some crates was the only indication of what was to come. A second passed, then two. From the small computer speakers, a bang lashed against the ever-present background hum of the recording. He barely saw the plasma beam enter and exit his chest before static overcame the screen. His body didn’t even hit the ground before the recording cut off. Lance flinched, both from the noise of the gun and the footage which had abruptly cut off. Grumbling in annoyance, Pidge reached over him and pressed a few buttons on her laptop. The static sped up - presumably being fast-forwarded - then completely cut out into noting but an ominous black screen.

“The footage was _completely_ corrupted for some reason. I couldn’t recover much after we destroyed the base-“ Oh. That was news to him. None of them ever mentioned that the Galran base was gone. “-but luckily I could still salvage some.”

She pressed another button and the screen paused. Another motion and the recording began to play again. A few seconds of blackness faded into pure static. Oddly, the static began the fade, revealing the grainy footage of the hangar once more. Lance blinked once, twice, then stared at the scene in front of him.

There he stood, circled by a slew of dead Galran soldiers and sentries. Some had had clean shots to their heads, their bodies fallen on the ground with their blood and brains completely blown out. Though most of the Galran soldiers, Lance realised with blooming revulsion, were completely ravaged, their bodies littered with sick plasma punctures; not his usual clean shots but rather a messy, blood-ridden panic. Even more horrifying were the countless of slashes and cuts and slices on the soldiers, some with their throats torn out and others where their still-bleeding entrails spilt next to them. Each Galran he lay his eyes upon was more mutilated than the last, completely ravaged by his Bayard’s blaster and what seemed to be deadly claw marks. Dozens, if not a whole battalion rested on the shiny metal ground, their purple-ish fluids forming pools around their figures.

A ring of blood and gore surrounded his figure yet he seemed completely unaffected by the gruesome culling. His armour was spattered with the plum-like gore, and the same fluids completely covered his hands and boots. Translucent, blue-tinged solids covered his chest, right where he was supposedly struck down and killed by the Galra. The footage was too grainy for Lance to see his face, but he could make out a slow trickle of crimson discharge emitting from his nose - the recording of himself slowly raising his gore-covered hand to his face. And for the second time in the recording, he collapsed, this time in a pool of his enemy’s and his own blood.

The monitor cut off again, this time immediately changing to an empty screen.

Before he knew it, Lance was out of his chair and retching into the kitchen sink, yet there was nothing to throw up but water. Strings of ropy bile were intermixed with flecks of his own blood. Everything felt numb. There was no way _that_ was him. The way those Galran were killed, no, _slaughtered_, was absolutely revolting. He had no memory of it, of completely desecrating and ruthlessly murdering the dozens of Galra that had fallen beneath his feet. No no no _no no_. This was wrong. All wrong. Whatever happened, it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be.

Yet as Lance looked down at his hands, all he could see was slick purple blood dripping down his arms and caked under his nails.

Lance’s body lurched as he threw up again.

He didn’t notice Hunk next to him, rubbing circles on Lance’s back and offering words of comfort; he didn’t notice Pidge and Keith’s uneasy expressions or Shiro’s sympathetic stare that seemed to be more piteous than anything else; he didn’t notice the concerned glances Coran and Allura exchanged. All he saw were the lifeless bodies of the Galra that _he_ had taken, the visions of their blood and ripped entrails burned in his mind. He killed them. He killed them all.

Without warning, a cold presence entered his mind, its cool trickle forcing a calmness to envelop his emotions. Lance _wanted_ to be disgusted, _wanted_ to fear for his own actions yet the presence coddled him with its icy grasp, making him feel nothing but numb. He was safe. Everything is okay. It wasn’t his fault.

The glacial desensitisation frightened him. He _should_ feel disgusted, _should_ fear for his own actions, yet she refused to let him endure the mind-numbing guilt.

Blue.

The colour of the sky, the colour of his Bayard, the colour of the Galran uniforms that were soaked in blood.

She was suppressing his emotions, making him feel things that weren’t his to feel. She was comforting him, reassuring him.

And as the team began to surround Lance, offering equal amounts of comfort and encouragements, he couldn’t help but feel disconnected from the whole situation. Everything was numb.

“Lance, listen to me,” Shiro’s voice cut through the frigid static. Lance found himself on his knees with his leader crouching in front of him. “what you did was not your fault. You would have died. Who is more important to us: you, or a battalion of enemy Galra?”

“Me,” Lance mumbled, his voice barely audible. He could feel Shiro’s intense stare but he refused to look him in the eye.

“We need you, buddy, as a teammate and a friend. Don’t blame yourself for trying to survive. I know what it’s like. You did nothing wrong.” Lance once again felt guilt coursing through his veins. How weak was he, flipping out in front of someone who had fought in the Galran arenas for an entire _year_. Twelve-year-old Lance would be furious on how badly he was acting in front of their hero. Seventeen-year-old Lance didn’t give a shit anymore.

“S’rry.” He slurred, once again feeling drained. The cold sensation was gone, but in its place was mind-numbing fatigue. Sensing that the teen was practically falling asleep in his arms, Shiro softly squeezed Lance’s hand, an oddly comforting gesture that reminded Lance of home.

“Don’t say sorry. We’re here for you, okay? I promise.”

Looking back on it, Lance was surprised he didn’t see it earlier.

Though he was too caught up in a war he never signed up for.

Who could blame him for not noticing the coldness that lurked in the depths of his mind? In a way he accepted the controlling numbness at face-value- why would he need to look any deeper into it?

It was a shame the next mission proved to be as bad as the last one.

“Promise.” Lance echoed.


	2. finis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looking back on it, Lance wasn’t surprised he didn’t see it earlier. He was chosen for this war, chosen for this battle. He was fated death, destroyer of worlds.
> 
> -
> 
> The beginning of the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three months and a little over 7k words later... I'm sorry.
> 
> This chapter was just not working for me. Unfortunately since I don't really know/talk to anyone in the fandom, I couldn't ask for any feedback or ideas, so you guys are stuck with this. Also, I posted the first part right before my exams started (VCE, hooray) so I had little time to work on it until December.
> 
> To be honest, I'm not really proud of this chapter, but I'm proud that I finished it. 
> 
> Anyways, more notes are at the bottom. Sorry for the long wait, and I hope you enjoy the second and final part of this fic!

Two weeks. Three days. Eleven hours. Thirty-six minutes. Fourteen seconds.

That’s how long it had been since Lance died. 

Ever since then the world had been looking bleaker, the sky greyer and everything absolutely depress- Haha, no. Despite what Earthen shows made it out to be like, dying does _not_ change everything. 

Or so Lance thought. 

Truth be told, it didn’t take long for things on the Castle of Lions to go back to normal. It was easy to repress the memories of the event, and even easier to ignore the scars that cut through his skin. A little bit of space foundation could do wonders. Lance found himself training harder, making louder jokes and flying faster than he ever did before. He wouldn’t quite place why, though. A part of his mind supplemented that it was normal to want to be better prepared in case _something_ happened again to him.

There was a smaller, quieter part of his mind disagreed. If he was to pinpoint why Lance could only feel something missing. No, not missing, but simply not present. The Cuban struggled to verbalise his thoughts at the best of times and this _feeling_ completely evaded any English word he knew. It felt as if he’d gained something then lost it, like a day of the sun surrounded by torrential weeks of rain. 

Lance didn’t bother to dwell on the thought. 

If he had to describe the indescribable, Lance would call it silence; a detachment from the battlefield and more importantly, the lions.

Blue hadn’t talked to him since. 

Normalcy was strange. Normalcy was welcoming. He embraced it willingly, going back to his normal ways; his shameless flirting of any attractive alien that moved (he did make it clear to Allura that he wasn’t really into her), his cluelessness of whatever new project Hunk and Pidge were working on (although he made an effort to try and learn as much as he could). Everything was okay. Everything was normal. 

_(Then why did it feel like he was stuck in mangroves, thrashing and gasping as their snake-like roots trapped him in the coming tide?)_

A couple of days after _The Incident_, the Cuban was back to training much to the displeasure of literally everyone. ’_You have to rest’_ Coran claimed and started rambling about the genius of self-cleaning healing pods and whatever the hell a ’Chixlub’ was (chances are they were some deadly Altean creature). Lance wholeheartedly agreed with the self-cleaning pod part (he still shivered at the thought of being trapped in one again) yet found his concentration drifting as Coran continued his incessant rambling. 

While in recovery, he couldn’t help but feel a certain vague unpleasantness. So when Coran suggested easing back into training, Lance jumped at the idea. Finally, he would be free to do _something!_ He could finally help out during missions or even just do something other than rest. The fatigue that plagued him followed him around closer than his own shadow, had eventually dissipated after a few weeks of lazing around more than he usually did. The whir of his blaster, the shocking light from his rifle energising. To everyone, Lance was improving rapidly - both his mental and physical health. And for the first time, the blue paladin was actually taking training seriously! 

_Who would’ve thought._

If the others noticed Lance’s change, they sure as hell didn’t bring it up. Maybe they wanted to skirt around the issue, to be soft and gentle with him. Or maybe they just didn’t notice, too wrapped up in their own personal dramas to see. Lance liked to believe the former. It had been a while since he felt like Voltron’s collective plan B and he _really_ didn’t want to get into that mindset again.

A little bit of concealer went a long way when making someone look alright. Unlike Earth, beauty products were easy to find in his skin tone in space. 

Sleep was a little harder to find. 

-

_Lance was fractured, split into two halves of a united whole. They longed for the metallic liquid that slid from his eyes, that gushed out of his stomach as entrails slowly escaped through a gaping hole in his flesh. It longed for the saccharine taste of blood that danced his lips when he took a blue-accented dagger and plunged it once, twice, over and over again into a Galran neck. He’d been **wronged.** Ferocity egged on by the heavy darkness that sat in the back of his mind, calling for the lives of others that played with him like a puppet on strings. How **dare** someone try to lay their pitiful hands on **him?** The other fell to the ground, not dissimilar to a marionette whose strings were cut. _

_The darkness wanted nothing more than to give up, to curl and cry and wish for a life when he didn't look at himself with disgust and anger and fear as he was merely a plaything. To gaze upon the bodies that littered the floor, both Galran and Paladin alike, and relish the cries they all screamed. He was fractured, split between the past and the present, the harsh warmth and the numbing frost. Around him, mirrors of reality begin to fracture and crack_

_and _break

_And then there was a soft blue light that enveloped his surroundings, blocking out the gruesome bodies and ripped flesh. He could relax, he was safe. _

_Nothing would hurt him. _

_No one would touch him. _

_All he had to do was stay in the li-_

Sitting up with a gasp, Lance ripped off his sheets and jolted out of bed, stumbling blindly in the dark. He managed to get to the small ensuite in his room right before waves of nausea overtook his mind and sickness travelled up his throat. There was something so viscerally cathartic about throwing up half your stomach at - he glanced at a small digital clock above the sink - three in the morning. 

The Blue Paladin choked up the last bit of sick from his throat and looked at the mirror above the sink, his shoulders hunched with tension. As his pupils adjusted to the light (or lack thereof), what little Lance could make out was only his silhouette donning untidy hair and tense expression. Lance stared at the stranger in the mirror, seeing only someone unfamiliar staring back.

Okay, he lied to his team about how well he slept. Who could blame him, though? Lance didn’t want to annoy anyone about something so trivial as bad dreams. Being a little afraid of the dark was dumb and, well, very embarrassing. But it wasn’t the dark that scared him, was it? 

Lance shivered despite the warmth of his room. 

Knuckled turning white from the pressure, Lance gripped the edge of the sink. God, he seriously had to get a grip on himself. This wasn't the first time he had been badly wounded in space - the large expanse of knotted skin on his back was a testament to that. _This is the first time you’ve dreamt of killing your friends_ a small voice said at the back of is mind. Lance pushed down the thought as deep as possible. 

He… he missed Blue. Lance missed the way she used to coddle him in her metaphorical paws, the way she’d circle his mind and lull him to sleep with her purrs. The sentient machine had been too distant las of late and it was obvious how much her absence affected his sleep. Sheepishly, Lance realised how much he’d become to depend on his Lion.

Without warning, alarms started to blare around the castle, accompanied by an angry red glow that lit up his room. Lance was shocked out of his stupor, worriedly glancing at the clock again.

Seven am. _Huh_. That didn’t sound right. Had he been awake for four hours? 

Lance bit his lip anxiously and began to hurriedly brush his teeth with a strength that would make Hunk proud. As quick the Red Lion if not quicker, The Cuban stripped out of his pyjamas and into his Paladin armour, then rushed out the door. After scrambling through the hallways in a desperate bid not to be late and make Allura angry _again,_ Lance stumbled into the hall, wheezing and out of breath. 

“Punctual as always, Number Three.”

Called a voice next to his right. 

“You know it, Coran. I do try my best!” Lance yelled back, shooting a finger gun at the Altean.

Usually, he’d say something equally snarky or start whining, but Lance knew fully well that Coran was only playfully teasing him. To be honest with himself, he really should’ve been a lot more careful of the time - or at least set an alarm. Today was an important day. Mission day.

Team Voltron began to clean out the Heliohs quadrant from any traces of the Galra or Zarkon’s army. Soon, they’d freed almost all of the planets that had been enslaved for so long in the quadrant. Day after day, more and more governments joined the Voltron Coalition. First Ignika, then more and more pledged themselves to the cause. Enebio, Rhey’ylyth and Nahoiah joined soon after. Before long Voltron had won back every single enslaved planet from the Galra.

All except one. 

Yrestead, a primary planet within the Sulfast system nestled comfortably in the Goldilocks zone of their luminous supergiant sun. Lance had come across many, many planets in his time as a defender of the universe but Yrestead took the cake for how _awesome_ it was. Painted as if it was out of a cyberpunk Earthen book, Yrestead was mainly a hyper-urban landscape of towering, dense skyscrapers bled against harsh neon lights. Forestry and most above-ground ecosystems destroyed decaphoebs ago, Yrestead was a culmination of technology and every Earthen sci-fi writer’s wet dream. With a healthy black market thriving within the capital, team Voltron had their first target.

Only a few vargas ago Kolivan had contacted the Castle, asking Allura - and by extent, the paladins - a certain favour. A quintent before a high-level Blade of Marmora operative went dark on his mission in Galran-occupied Yrestead. The mission was nothing _too_ complex, Kolivan explained, simply infiltrating the ruling Galra’s ranks, gather intel and eventually, destroy the main Galran base. Simple, right? Only that half a year into the mission, the operative completely dropped off the face of the Earth (or the face of Yrestead, more accurately). Missing, presumed dead, recent surveillance footage captured the Marmoran working _with_ the Galra Empire. Spoiler alert: Kolivan was not happy in the slightest.

And so Kolivan gave Team Voltron their mission: take them out. 

No name for the faceless defector was supplied. To keep the mission impersonal, Lance supposed. Normally assassinations were more of a Blade thing rather than a Voltron thing but apparently, the government were on watch for any Marmoran retaliation. The proposed plan was simple, Voltron creates a distraction by attacking (but not significantly harming) Yrestead while the Blade slipped into the capitol unnoticed and did whatever they were supposed to. Voltron was Kolivan’s last resort which, if Lance was being completely honest, made him uneasy.

Was there a turning point to the missions Voltron undertook? Lance remembered a time when the highest priority was persevering life of all parties involved, even innocent Glaran bystanders. The thought of undertaking a mission with the sole purpose of intentionally murdering someone felt… wrong. The Lions were supposed to be a symbol of peace, a weapon of hope. Who were they to play judge, jury, and executioner? At what point did everything become so grey?

When they enlisted in a war that wasn’t their own, Lance supposed. 

“We need the Red and Yellow Lions to tackle Yrestead’s outer industrial complexes first, which should cripple their power.” The authoritative voice of Kolivan shook Lance out of his thoughts. “Then the Black Lion will start to target the Empire’s ships in the outer atmosphere. Only after both objectives have been completed can the Blade of Marmora move in and complete the mission.”

“Uh, yeah, and what about Lance and I?” Pidge piped up from behind the Blue Paladin.

“Pidge’s right! Didn’t you say you needed _all_ of our help? Last time I checked, you only mentioned three Lions.” At Lance’s words, Kolivan’s carefully-crafted neutral mask slipped for a moment as his jaw clenched in annoyance. 

“As I was saying before the Green Paladin interrupted me, once the main power generators and external Galran forces have been disabled, we will need the Green Lion and their cloaking abilities to drop us into the capitol. Paladin,” The Marmoran turned directly to Lance, his yellow eyes staring straight through the boy, “you will accompany the ground troops.”

Before Lance could reply or say anything, Allura cut into Kolivan’s speech. “Would the Blue Lion not be better suited for the first phases of attack? Pulling Lance out of his Lion will prevent the Paladins from forming Voltron lest it comes to that.” Allura had a point. Lance didn’t see why _he_ should be on the ground while his team were in the air. If anything, shouldn’t Keith tag along with the Marmorans? After all, Lance wasn’t the one who went through the Blade trials.

“Normally that would be the case however, we have intel that the defector is instructed to directly notify the Galran occupiers of any damage to key Yrestead operations, such as the power grid.” Kolivan outstretched his furry hand and fiddled with a holographic map. The blue graphics morphed into a rendering of what Lance presumed to be the buildings and their layout in the inner Yrestead capitol. “During our surveillance, we have gathered that the defector is on a strict schedule. They will be here-“ his finger pointed to a rather large building a couple of doors down from the capital building “-exactly halfway through the Yrestead night cycle. This gives us a short window of opportunity to strike. I’m under the impression that the Blue Paladin is a rather talented long-ranged shooter.” 

Realisation shot through Lance’s body, his eyes slightly widening. He could see where Kolivan’s plans were going and judging by the surprised expression painted on most of his team, they were too. It wasn’t to say that Lance _wasn’t_ impressionable or anything, yet being singled out by the Blade especially in such a high-velocity mission was nothing but unusual.

Kolivan turned towards Lance, and the boy felt himself shrink underneath the Galran’s intense gaze. 

“Paladin, what is your opinion on possible nests?”

Lance stared at the holograph, analysing the small dotted line that plotted the outside course of the defector’s hypothetic journey. It seemed to travel along a hundred or so meters between high-rise apartments wedged together like an Earthen metropolitan, then a brief stretch no more than ten meters across a road until it stopped at the gates of the Yrestead capitol building. But, as Lance noticed, only the immediate vicinity of the pathway was displayed.

“Can this thing zoom out?” Kolivan nodded stiffly and made quick motions with one of his hands. Immediately growing smaller, the original holograph retreated until the map displayed a diameter of around a dozen kilometres. Lance could finally see the surrounding buildings 

“This is perfect, thanks dude.” Ignoring the Blade’s scowl at his casual tone, Lance studied the surrounding area for a couple of ticks. Looking for a perfect vantage point was like solving a puzzle, and while Lance hated putting together actual, physical puzzles (who had the time for that, anyway?) he loved the challenge. And only after a moment of deliberation, Lance solved it.

“Look, if you’re going for a sniper shot, there’s no way anyone is going to read the dude while he’s between these two streets. No angle has a good vantage point _and_ is far away enough to allow for a discrete escape. The walls are just too high. Luckily for us, or rather unlucky for the poor sap who’s working for a government that has awful city planning around their capitol building which is a _total_ hazard-“

“Get to the point, Lance.” Shiro sighed.

“Right, sorry. The only time we have a clear view of the path is here,” he indicated towards the road. “and thank’s to the government’s poor planning, there’s a direct line of sight-“ Lance leaned over the holograph, pointing out a building that looked uncannily like some sort of corporate skyscraper he had seen on a holiday in New York when he was younger “-here. It’s like, seven kilometres away, but my Bayard can take it.”

A rare, sharp smile showed on Kolivan’s face before he turned back to Allura and Shiro to discuss other details. Lance tuned out the rest of the meeting, his mind going lucid and eyes glassy. He couldn’t focus on anything other than the details of his new mission. At the moment, Lance felt like the hero, agreeing to a job and saving the day like he always wanted to. But as he thought more and more on the plan in its entirety, why did it feel like he’d already sealed his fate?

-

On the day of the mission, everything went as smoothly as an assassination could go. The whole team woke up early, hastily eating food goo that seemed to be seasoned by some sort of alien pop-rocks, and gathered in the debriefing room for one final walkthrough of the plan to assassinate a Galran.

The morning passed by with a blur and soon enough, Lance found himself inside of Green’s cockpit. With an impressive amount of cloaking capabilities, Pidge’s Lion had been volunteered to airlift him to the top of the building which served as his snipers' nest. Bidding the green paladin a farewell (“See ya, gremlin,” “Break a leg, doofus.”), Lance snuck down the emergency escape hatch on the roof, using a small device Pidge had created to bypass any locks or barriers.

The skyscraper Lance chose as his nest had its top five floors completely closed off to the public. He didn’t know why, but the paladin suspected the Blade of Marmora and hefty bribes had something to do with it. Oh well, Lance wasn’t complaining. It made his job a lot easier.

Everything about the mission was predetermined; the exact room acting as the nest and the time of the shooting were all discussed lengthily the night before. Lance thanked the lion gods that he managed to keep his focus long enough to absorb all the details before zoning out. Once he had done the deed, Lance was to meet Blue at rendezvous point near the building. In an out in less than ten doboshes. Too easy. After sneaking into said room, Lance did a small comb-over to see if there were any hidden cameras (or sentries), before setting up his bayard next to the window and checking the small wristwatch on his armour.

T-minus five doboshes. _Great_.

“Everything okay on your end, Lance?” Shiro’s voice blared from his comms. Lance nodded, before realising the others couldn’t see the action.

“All good on my end, bossman. Everything is set up, and I’m ready to go.” Static, then:

“Good luck. Be careful.” 

Lance smirked at his leader’s words. “Careful is my middle name.” He said. Ignoring his team’s groans from his admittedly poor joke, the blue paladin continued, “I’m turning off my comms now. Gotta focus. See you guys on the other side.” 

Switching his comms off and activating his bayard, Lance lowered his body to the ground and messed with the scope and muffler on the gun. Unlike other weapons Lance attempted to use in the past, wielding the blue bayard felt like an extension of his limbs; a part of himself. Natural. He checked the timer again. 

T-minus two doboshes. 

Laying on his stomach, Lance peered through the scope, adjusting his aim to look directly at the target. 

After a few more silent moments of anticipation and waiting, the boy saw a figure enter the scope’s view. His eyes widened in bewilderment. 

For the first time since becoming a paladin, Lance’s hands shook.

He _knew_ this Galran. Unlike the thousands of faceless entries he’d killed before, Lance _knew_ the ex-Marmoran. They talked occasionally and hell, Lance had even tried one of his terrible pickup lines on the unsuspecting Galran. Kolivan had especially introduced him to the Paladins for a mission right after the two organisations met. 

_Kuza_, his mind supplemented. The name of the Galran. Kuza. It was hard to distinguish between the esteemed Blade of Marmora soldier that risked their lives to save the Paladin’s asses and the cowardly defector that stood in front of him. 

It couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks after they’d first come across the Blade of Marmora and Team Voltron needed tactical support with freeing a gaseous planet from Galra rule. Lance’s mind raced as he thought back to the battle. A moment of clarity allowed him to remember bits and pieces among the hundreds and thousands of monotonous battles they’d done in the past. He recalled the Marmoran had directed enemy fire away from the Lions and to his rusty little ship. Fuck, Kuza almost died to protect the Lions.

And now?

Lance stared at the Galran in the scope of his rifle, the crosshair in the sight placed exactly at his forehead.

Was the defector’s hair sleek from the rain or their blood? Was their brilliant purple fur the same colour of the dead Galran soldiers abandoned long ago in the hangar? Did their eyes gleam with magic, or from pain?

Lance’s hand shook.

No. No no_nonono_. He couldn’t do this. 

Who was he to play god? 

The vile sickness that had haunted him when he had watched the recording was back, its slimy tendrils wrapping around his throat. The countless sentries that feel to his Bayard were faceless and inhuman, a stark difference to the living, breathing person that Lance was about to kill. 

_But they weren’t all faceless soldiers, were they? _He killed living, breathing organisms on the Ignikan base_._

Pictures of him holding our his purple-stained weapon flashed in his mind, sending a cool shiver down his spine. Time appeared to be moving at a snail’s pace, the slow movement seen in his sights shaking from his trembling. He was back at the Galran base, his hands and legs and torso drenched with his assailant’s blood. This time it was _worse_ for this wasn’t even in self-defence. 

Murder. That’s what it was. Plain, simple murder. 

Lance could leave, go back to his team and shrug his shoulders when they asked why he never pulled the trigger. Turn off his comms and claim that he was attacked before he could make the shot. He’d be berated, sure, but the paladin was used to being told off for his actions. Screwing things up was exactly what he excelled at. Getting in trouble for his own fuck-ups was nothing new to him. But-

Shivers went down Lance’s spine as he suddenly felt a moment of clarity. He had to take the shot. For the sake of the mission. His friends were relying on him to get it done. He needed to be a team player, show the others what he was made of. The sudden switch between adamance for not shooting the Galra to an impassive sureness _should_ have been startling to Lance, yet the juxtaposition felt natural. He _needed_ to do this. It was the only way.

A moment of tranquillity struck the paladin, a coolness not dissimilar to the fresh waters of Varadero Beach pressing in his every muscle. _Calm_, it seems to say, and Lance complies. His scattered thoughts losing its erratic behaviour, only now just a straight, peaceful line. 

Breath in. Breath out.

_Spread your legs. Rest the rifle on your shoulders_.

Breath in. Breath out.

_Stare in the scope. Place the crosshair on their forehead._

Breath in-

In one cold, calculated movement, Lance pulled the trigger. 

-breath out

A click, a thud. Kuza’s blood painted the grey concrete a sickly purple while his brain matter leaked from the bullet hole in between his eyes. What stood breathing just moments before now lay sprawled across the pavement, a single, clean bulled ripped through his skull.

Before all of this, Lance would have jumped in victory, blabbering on the comms about his amazing shot and how good of a sharpshooter he was. Now, the boy continued to lay down on the floor, his eyes glassy and body unmoving. He supposed someone was contacting him on his comms, yet the growing cacophony of static and meaningless noise drowned out his team’s voices. Like a marionette controlled by invisible strings, he stood up stiffly and deactivated his Bayard.

There was shouting behind him, a piercing noise that knocked Lance out of his temporary paralysis. The yells over his comms get louder and louder, yet so does the static in his ears. Heavy thuds from the staircase outside his secluded little sniper’s nest intensify. Something was coming. Someone must have leaked his location or- 

_Fuck_.

He had forgotten to turn off the trackers in his armour. The small device in his cuirass must have been broadcasting his location - an easily hackable signal which Pidge had taken advantage of multiple times. Compromised and so close to combat, Lance felt none of the fear or anxiety he’d normally experience right before a battle. Instead, invisible tendrils of embracing power seemed to guide his body into action. 

Three armed figures - a Yresteadian and two Galrans judging by the purple fur - burst through the flimsy door, blasters at the ready. Yet they were no match for him, a paladin. 

Morphing his Bayard into the sleek Altean Broadsword, Lance brought the blade in a deadly arc across the throat of the Yresteadian. Nonchalantly wiping the pinkish blood off of his visor, Lance sent a powerful kick at the now-dead body, the momentum of it crashing into one of the Galrans and sending them sprawling on the floor. Lance dodged a fist as the other Galran charged too close for him to bring his sword to protect himself, the morphed his Bayard back into his original and trusty blaster. 

Two shots, one at the closest and one at the fallen Galran, and both fell to the ground, unmoving. Lance stared at the bodies with a completely neutral expression. Nothing could hurt him. 

A weird sensation flowed down Lance’s face. He touched his face and immediately felt warm fluid dribble his nose. 

Thick, viscous liquid dripped from his chin, crimson rivulets splattering on the floor. Blood. 

Oh god. 

It was happening again.

Like the fateful day on the Galran base near Ignika, Lance had just killed, no, _slaughtered_ four lives without flinching, without batting an eye to the carnage he’d caused. He was a murderer, a merchant of death. 

This wasn’t what he wanted. Every synapse in his body seemed to scream ’_wrong_’ at the bodies that littered the ground.

Why did he do it? Why did he lose control again? Everything seemed too fuzzy, too hazy. The room began to spin, Lance staggering to the ground. His nosebleed only grew in intensity. 

He needed to tell his team. There was no way he could be on the field if he was having these... episodes. Violent and methodical episodes of ruthless slaughter. Who cared that they were enemy soldier, they were people too. Kuza, the Galrans, they breathed the same air. They still bled the same. 

Lance’s breaths became laboured and choppy; only black dots bled into his vision. Everything was fucked. He didn’t want to kill anyone else. This was wrong. 

_Wrongwrongwrongwro-_

As if on command, Lance’s body suddenly grew taut and still, his muscles frozen in place. A presence grew at the back of his mind, perching itself on his shoulder and purring. 

Lance screamed at his body to _move_ though his limbs stubbornly refused to respond. He wanted to shout, to yell and cry and do anything he could to get away from the sniper’s den. Like a powered-down sentry locked in place, his whole body lay still and silent. His skin grew numb and number as the frigid sensation moved across his torso and spread its chilling bite. Snaking its way across his tanned skin, a raw, glacial cirrus coiled across Lance’s chest and into his heart, leaving a frigid sensation its wake. It _hurt_, god it hurt so much yet his muscles refused to respond. 

“-n’t answering, we need to send someone.” A grainy voice blared over his comms, sounding suspiciously like a panicked Hunk. 

Methodically, Lance stood up straight and with perfect grace, something so unlike his normal slightly hunched posture. 

_Please… Stop…_

Instead, a voice - his voice - cut through the white noise. 

“Sorry guys!” The mimic sounded so wrong, so foreign. It was his voice, yet it wasn’t. “A bunch of guys decided to jump me and damaged my comms. Don’t worry, they’ve been taken care of!” 

In his mind, Lance was thrashing, screaming, doing anything to get away from the _thing_ that bound him so tightly. He was tired of the death, the senseless murder and violence Voltron left in its wake to achieve the goal of peace yet someone - no, something - wouldn’t let him go.

“All okay? Do you need any assistance getting back to the Castle?” Shiro’s worried voice came through the tinny comms. 

“S’all good, boss. I’ve got it covered. Be back in a couple of doboshes.”

With all of his will, Lance tried desperately to close his eyes, not wanting to see any more death by his hand, yet they stayed open as the chilly force fought him with growing power. Unwillingly, Lance walked past the dead soldiers without sparing them a second glance (perhaps his puppetmaster felt benevolent) and down the stairs. He could feel his strength waning by the second, the invisible fight he was putting up slowly slipping from his grasp. 

With a choked, invisible sob, Lance gave in to the presence. The power and the pain in brought was too great. The blue paladin could do nothing but watch absently as something used his body for their own gain. 

**Good boy.**

Lance flinched. It felt so familiar, the raspy growl inside his head was not new. It had been there for years, hidden at the back of his mind as he piloted and slept; trained and explored. 

**You did well, my paladin.**

...

No. 

_NO. _

Blue wouldn’t do this. Blue wouldn’t betray him like this. The sentient monster had been out of his head for weeks, there’s no way she just forced him to kill- murder someone. The statement was the final nail in Lance’s coffin. 

This was wrong. So fucking wrong. The Lions- no, Blue, had no right to play judge, jury, and executioner. The Lions had no right to force their paladins into actions they did not want to do. Yet the sentience of the beasts allowed for too much power, too much objectivity. 

Lance almost didn’t notice that he had reached Blue’s cloaked form. A shiver of unimportance, of being so _small_ went down the paladin’s spine as imposing yellow eyes stared down at him. 

With one last push, Lance exerted all his effort to try as run, to get away from the machine that held him on such taut strings and toyed with him like a plaything. He could feel his muscles trembling with the attempt yet that was as far as he went. It was all for nothing.

Lance felt dirty, ever so dirty. The muck washed all over his body, rubbing Lance’s skin raw and leaving him feeling used. Violated. 

Blue’s was no longer pure, but rather a slush of pain and mud and _hurt_.

With an echoed cry, Lance went limp in his mind, while his puppeteer piloted themselves back to the castle. 

-

At the tender age of eleven, Lance’s newly-graduated brother took him and Rachel snorkelling with the little money he’d saved up working odd jobs around Varadero. Lance didn’t know it at the time, but this would be the last time he would see Luis before his oldest brother before he moved to Australia to surf, and study Marine Biology in Sydney. 

Lance remembered the beautiful sights Luis showed him, from glittering coral that shone iridescent in the sun to the curious suppers that poked their heads out tentatively from the anemones to look disapprovingly at whoever dared to disturb them. The three siblings swam late into the afternoon until Rachel accidentally cut herself on a shell and Luis had run off to grab some disinfectant. Why he wasn’t fussing over his sister, Lance didn’t know, but he’d been distracted by something in the water. Something _shiny_.

While Luis was distracted by a crying Rachel, Lance slunk back into the ocean and dove in the lukewarm depths. Swimming deeper and deeper, Lance remembered vividly how overpowering the pressure became as he swam deeper and deeper. The invisible force wrapped around his head and gripped his chest, its unrelenting dominancy choking the rather adept swimmer. Yet he refused to relent, the sea would not be able to best him. And so he swam until the compression on his body knocked the remaining breath from his lungs. He barely noticed Luis’ burly arms yank him to the surface. 

Whatever Luis said while reprimanding him, Lance couldn’t remember to this day. The only thing that stayed in his mind was the sensation of his lungs being crushed and head about to explode under the depths of the ocean.

Blue’s force was so much worse.

Lance sunk to his knees outside of the Lion, the pressure of Blue and the weight of her control drowning him in their sea of torment. 

The Lion worked his body with mechanical precision, imitating his every speaking pattern, tic, or nervous habit to perfection. His team didn’t even notice that it wasn’t really Lance controlling his own body. So when he, no, Blue asked the other paladins to give him some time alone in Blue’s hangar, of course, they all complied. 

And so Lance knelt in front of his captor, begging for her to shake off the iron-clad grip she had on his mind. 

“No… Blue… _Azura_, babe, you _can’t_.” He panted, unable to find the energy to scream.

Yet the leonine monster refused to answer, its yellow eyes glaring down at their marionette. Lance wanted to rebel, to fight back and take the first escape pod out of the Caste of Lions before Blue could control him again. 

But he couldn’t. 

He was too _weak_. 

Lance closed his eyes and let out a small sob. Then, without warning, something cupped his cheek with a warmth Lance could only describe as human. 

_“Mamá?”_

Opening his eyes slowly, Lance saw the familiar face of his parent; he soft brown eyes and mousy hair that had greyed from five kids. It should’ve been impossible, yet she was here. Somehow, trillions of miles away from Cuba and Varadero beach his mother was here, kneeling in front of him. She cupped his face, stroking his cheek with calloused fingers. The tension in Lance’s muscles melted away under her soothing gestures. 

”_Mi niño_, everything will be okay. _Te quiero_.” Her voice was soft, breathy, and made Lance’s eyes glassy. God, how long had it been since he had seen her? How long since he had heard her voice? 

“What… what are you doing here?” His mouth felt like cotton; too dazed by his mother’s arrival to question why she was in the Castle of Lions, far far away from their home. Though, was it even his home anymore? His mother hummed softly and carded her fingers through his hair. If she heard his question, she sure didn’t acknowledge it. 

“You are safe, my boy. I love you.”

Lance stiffened. That... didn’t sound like his mamá. The possessiveness, the _want_. He studied the woman, his eyes raking over every centimetre of her face and body. It was still her: the same long eyelashes, the same sallow skin, the same-

She was cold. Too cold. Her skin like ice and her eyes just too _fucking_ cold. 

“Et tu, mamá?” Lance manages to choke out before his throat swelled in grief. Suddenly he was choking on sobs, on the wetness that built in his eyes, in the freezing hug that the imposter gripped him with. 

“I will keep you safe.” She murmured in his ear, almost too soft for the blue paladin to hear. “You are **mine**.”

It was grotesque hearing Blue through his mother’s mouth, making Lance want nothing but to lock himself in a dark room and cry. Or Punch something. Whatever would distract him from Blue manipulating his mother’s body. Was it even her, or just some apparition? 

“This is for your own good, my Paladin. You will never be harmed. Not again.”

He didn’t _want_ to be the perfect soldier, to kill others without hesitation. He didn’t want to listen to the puppet master that exploited his fears or knew how to control him. Yet Blue knew Lance better than he did himself, with every nook and cranny, every hidden desire or secret phobia he had ever held untouched by the sentient beast. 

**“You will be the perfect Paladin.”**

Imaged flooded Lance’s mind, him looking into the sunset, family and friends surrounding him as they all celebrated victory over the Galra empire; the awed stares of his comrades as he finally proved his worth to the other paladins; his name forever etched into the stars, generations remembering him as the greatest sharpshooter and pilot of Voltron. This is what he wanted, right? Recognition, fame, seeing his family again on an Earth that prey to God was still untouched by the Galran blight. 

All he had to do was give in, to relinquish control. Blue knew best. She had nurtured and trained him and now she was too afraid to see him suffer. Power without the hard work, wasn’t that best? Lance thought he’d grown out of that hindering mindset long ago, yet now he doubted himself. Was this Blue’s thoughts, or his? Was this even real, or was Blue so ingrained in his head that everything was just one big hallucination? 

Lance felt reality around him fracture. Who was he if he couldn’t even trust his own thoughts? 

The blue paladin felt the last echoes of warmth leave his body. All that remained was the steady, supportive ice that encased him in its welcoming frost. There was no point in fighting back, not really. As the apparition of his mother faded, Lance was left beneath the towering figure of his Lion. He’d never realised how small he was compared to the best. He _should_ have felt frail and overwhelmed by her, yet he just… couldn’t. 

Like the fleeting warmth, Lance felt his energy and fight drain from his body. There wasn’t any point, was there? To brawl and oppose the Lion’s would only bring more pain or prolong the inevitable. Why fight the control when it only aimed to serve him? Weakness was not an option for a Paladin, that he knew all too well. If he continued to fight, would he even have a place on the team anymore? 

Lance’s breath hitched in his throat. _That_ scared him more than anything else, the possibility that he’d no longer fit with his friends, that he’d be nothing more than a liability. Blue would just reject him if he struggled any longer and then his fears would become reality. Backed into a corner, Lance knew he was stuck at a crossroad, both paths undesirable. Yet Blue was his friend, his closest confidant. He could trust her. She only wanted what was right for her paladin, right? He needed to be strong, needed to survive. 

Blue loved him. 

Blue would never let him go. 

Lance screamed. His body did not.

-

Looking back on it, they were surprised they didn’t see it earlier.

Though they were too caught up in a war they never signed up for to notice.

Five sentient lions, each with a unique set of weaknesses and strengths, or personalities and behaviours. How they acted alone, controlled themselves, was beyond anyone’s comprehension. All the paladins knew was that they were bonded to a weapon - a being capable of freeing the universe from the clutches of a herculean race. 

They accepted their fates as handlers of them too readily.

Whenever Lance refused to kill another being, whenever he was too injured to fight or too tired to train, she would take over. His master, his goddess; a state of being that allowed him to go further and further with his abilities. After a time, the line between man and machine blurred, for the point where Lance began and the Blue Lion ended got murkier and murkier. Even Lance could no longer separate his own words from Blue’s, yet was that really so bad?

He was stronger. Faster. A better paladin and teammate.

All he had to do was give in. 

The lion guided him through his darkest times, suffocating him in affection and praise through fright, insecurity and strife. Lance felt himself unable to experience the night terrors and episodes of panic that he used to. She helped him, improved him, her power flowed through his veins brighter than blood ever could. And yet no one noticed Blue's influence. His teammates' perfect ignorance delighted <strike>Blue</strike> Lance. Allura enjoyed his increased focus, Shiro commended his sudden drive; Hunk, Pidge and Keith found him less annoying as his and Blue's connection swelled faster than a high tide.

Allura once praised him on his connection with the Blue Lion: a connection no other current paladin had achieved. Perhaps Lance was the only one being guided <strike>puppeteered</strike> by the sentient machine. Perhaps the others were as well. Lance may have once thought before being shown Blue’s true power that this connection was bad. He was wrong. Oh, so wrong. Luckily his lion cut through his ridiculous thoughts.

No longer was he the insecure, bashful paladin who questioned their place on the team, but rather the prideful host of a spirit who made them invincible. The synergy between him and Blue, the resonance of their souls, elevated him into the perfect picture of himself. Their thoughts were synonymous.

<strike>and he couldn’t complain, even if he wanted to</strike>

Looking back on it, Lance wasn’t surprised he didn’t see it earlier. He was chosen for this war, chosen for this battle. He was fated death, destroyer of worlds.

Lance was the first one to succumb to their claws.

Blue’s grasp on him was like an endless expanse; an opulent and brilliant ocean. Her waters were dark,

and

it

went 

down 

**forever**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Damn. 15.5k words later and I have my first finished multi-chaptered fic. And my first VLD fic. hooray. 
> 
> I hope the ending is clear enough? I don't want a solid resolution or anything, just something that prompts your thoughts. Blue isn't supposed to be the 'bad guy' or anything, but rather someone who is trying to help old Lancey, albeit in the wrong way. 
> 
> I usually dislike leaving things open ended but idek how I would end it any other way. If you have any ideas or something, comment below or contact me on Tumblr and I might consider making this a series!
> 
> -
> 
> Initially, I started this story to get back into writing. The last thing I wrote was Warrior Cats (I know, I know) fanfiction on wattpad so, like, I really needed to brush up my skills. This served it's purpose and got a /lot/ more attention than I actually expected!
> 
> In the future, I'm planning to work on an AU inspired by some art, The Umbrella Academy Klance AU or perhaps a few one-shots (most likely on Monsters & Mana, a canonverse work or a Limitless AU). Hopefully I can pump these out even though 2020 will be one of the hardest years school-wise for me.
> 
> -
> 
> Please leave a comment and a kudos if you enjoyed, and if you ever want to hmu/talk/follow the progress of my writing, follow me at [@ashkazora](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/ashkazora) on Tumblr! 
> 
> Your feedback means a lot to me, so I'd love to hear what you think on my first ever VLD fic! Hope you've enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> Part 1 is finished! Stick around for part 2. It should be released soon-ish? Its release date really depends on my exams for this year, so hopefully within the month. Originally this was supposed to be a singular one-shot but while writing this, I realised that this subject is so broad.
> 
> The next part will get into the darker side of the lions. Specifically Blue, and her control over her paladin. I originally wanted to write the beginning of the darker parts in this chapter but it would have added like another couple thousand words and tbh I just want to release this asap. I hope the ending to this chapter wasn't too abrupt or too underwhelming. 
> 
> The title is totally not taken from a short story I studied in class ;)
> 
> Anyways thank you for reading! Comments/feedback is really appreciated! 
> 
> If you ever want to talk to me or scream about vld/other fandoms, you can contact me on @ashkazora (writing) or @greystripes-grandma (reblogs) on Tumblr.
> 
> I can guarantee that more vld works - this one and others - will be posted over the following months.
> 
> Thanks for tuning in! Stay fresh.


End file.
